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RequestedDisplayResolution tag in application descriptor allows the developer to choose between standard or high resolution on iOS devices with high resolution screen. High resolution screens were earlier only available in iPhone and iPod 4th Generation and above. Recently released models on iPad namely iPad 3rd & 4th Generation also boast of a high resolution screen with 2048×1536 resolution. Specifying a ‘high’ value in requestedDisplayResolution tag enables the retina mode in the all iOS devices having the high resolution screen. Prior to AIR 3.6, there was no way to enable or disable retina mode on some specific devices. There existed some workarounds but they came with some trade offs of not able to use the iOS 6 specific features.

A new attribute ‘excludeDevices’ has been added in AIR 3.6 in the requestedDisplayResolution tag in the application descriptor. Developers will now be able to explicitly disable the specified display resolution on one or more iOS devices using this attribute.

Apple recently released 5th generation of iPhone and iPod Touch. The 5th generation of iPhone and iPod Touch boasts of a 4 inch(diagonal) retina display screen with a resolution of 1136×960 pixels. The 4th generation of iPhone and iPod Touch sported a 3.5 inch (diagonal) retina screen with a resolution of 960×640 pixels, in comparison. The table below compares the screen size and resolution of 5th generation devices with the 4th generation devices.

It just became easier to author AIR Native Extensions for iOS. An open source contribution has been made by someone that allows easier authoring of ANEs for iOS. The application is actually a template for Xcode that gives you a head start on ANE creation.

Traditionally, computer programs can be executed in three possible ways – interpreted, static (ahead-of-time) compilation and Just In time (JIT). In interpreted mode, the code is translated from high-level language to low level language during execution whereas in ahead-of-time compilation the high-level language code is converted to low-level machine code before hand. JIT (Just in time) compilation is a hybrid approach of the two. Here the code translation into native code occurs during the execution time and the translated code is cached so that this conversion need not be done every time. Obviously there is a small penalty when compared to ahead-of-time compilation as there is a cost associated with this translation.

After this brief introduction lets get into the Adobe AIR world and what is there in it for an iOS AIR developer. SWF content on all platforms other than iOS is JIT compiled, whenever possible. The swf is downloaded locally and JIT compiled where possible. Continue reading…